On The Rocks
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Three Car Garage (25 player)
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The Summit of Storm PeaksFinally a Beta Key!
It is about damn time too! I’ve been drooling over screen shots and updates provided by MMO-Champion.com pretty much every week, and now I can finally experience it for myself. Although pretty much all the new Mage spells as been tested by other players already, but I will still like to see it first hand.
If there is something you would like me to test out, feel free to ask away. I will do my best to test it out and record the data. I will most likely be testing out the Frost Talents first on my 70 Mage, then test it out again on my premade 80 Mage. Then I would move on to Arcane, then Fire, the tree I have the least experience on.
The Beta Client itself is a whopping 1.87 gig download, then the install will take up another 7.3 gigs of my precious hard drive space. I had to delete some very important pr0… jects in order to be able to install the beta. It took me about 4hrs to download the client using the Blizzard downloader. I am sure there are direct downloads of the client elsewhere on the net, but I’d rather trust the real deal.
I copied my Mage over on the PvE server (Alliance Side) and the premades I chose Horde Side. If you happen to also be on beta, let me know and we can group up!
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Oh god. So many things I want to know.
How significant is the mana restore provided by the water elemental when chain casting spells?
If you spec into Arcane for both Meditation and the spirit boost, and use Mage Armor, just how much mana restore we talking in total? Is it even possible to run OOM specced as a frost mage anymore?
Exactly how often does Brain Freeze proc? I know the tooltip says 15%, but how does it “feel”?
How precisely does the new Frost Warding talent work? Is the mana restore part separate from the 30% chance of total spell negation?
Does “Shattered Barrier” proc if Ice Barrier is dispelled? Is it on separate dimishing returns from pet nova/frost nova/frostbite? I believe it shares a DR with frostbite, are you able to verify this?
How is Blizzard as an AoE ability now that it has the ability to critically strike?
Is Fingers of Frost dispellable? I would assume it is, but need to be sure.
Any viable alternatives to using rank 1 frostbolt in PvP, or is frost now officially a face roll spec?
*Deep breath*
Hoowhooohaaa….
/passout
Euripedess last blog post..Input Wanted!
Thank you thank you! You are the best blogger everah!
I’m so glad you decided to hold a contest and randomly award the key to whoever can produce a blog that is about Mages casting spells turning people into small woolly domesticated mammals! May the best blogger win!
I was just able to copy a Premade Mage so far, and am running the beta client with no mods to do any decent data collecting yet. So far I’ve only did some random testing with a 11/0/60 PvE Frost Spec. I also don’t have anyone whom I can test out the dispelling yet.
Mana Restore from Water Elemental so far is very small, but decent. With the Mage at 15k mana, he was returning about 90 mana to me every 5 seconds, and returning 25 mana every 5 seconds to himself.
Blizzard as an AoE spell which can now crit is very good. They were ticking for around 700 and criting for around 1400. I had 1 point into Imp Blizzard, so they were also procing Frostbite resulting in a chain of 1400 ticks until Frostbite broke.
Fingers of Frost is a BUFF proc and not a DEBUFF proc. YOU will gain the buff, and it is a Magic Buff which can be dispelled. You can proc the buff while dpsing one target, and use the buff (next 2 frost spells) on another target.
Rank 1 Frostbolt is 513 Mana with a 1 second cast. Rank 16 Frostbolt is 428 Mana with a 2.5 second cast. I can still see players using Rank 1 for when they REALLY need a quick snare. Slow is now 342 Mana, and will make Arcane Mages more viable for PvP. In my opinion, Frost will still be the PvP spec.
I’ll try to do some more test later today after work work…
@ Aurdon
What whaaaa?! o_O
I would like to know if any of the new content is FUN.
Everywhere you read about WotLK, all you hear about is loot, powers, balance, etc. But nobody ever says they are having fun or not. That seems to me like it would be more important than loot or other things.
-Cambios
Blogging about Online Gaming and Virtual Worlds:
http://www.muckbeast.com
Muckbeasts last blog post..POW = Persistent Online World
@ Muckbeast
Well for me, “Fun” would be the journey from 70 -> 80, questing with friends, exploring the new lands, running instances, eventually raiding. Unfortunately, with level 80 premades, I couldn’t really experience any of that. Also with the randomness of the Beta Key, none of my friends are on Beta yet so I didn’t really run any instances yet.
So unless you think testing out new spells on a target dummy, “Fun”, I can’t really tell you if it is. Blizzard has made raid stacking easier to allow a more variety of classes, and eliminated the “Need” to bring certain classes over another. There is more World PvP too with the new expansion.
As for loot… when I installed the Beta Client, it came with the default UI, so General Chat was on. Players linking loot, saying annoying things… Sadly, it really seems like what a lot of players find loot more important.
This is a Beta Test. Players should be testing. Well at least I am.
Well I just got my beta key as well so still 4h to go on DL…i’ll copy a premade horde over as copying my main over isn’t an option atm. Looking to focus on the Arcane tree.
Aurdons last blog post..
I really don’t think there is anything such as a beta test any more. They are really just volunteer load balancing tests. Developers rarely ever listen to feedback during these “betas”, and the only people they DO listen to are the ones online 40+ hours a week. And frankly, anyone with 40 hours a week to beta test has a life so out of whack their feedback should be roundly ignored.
That said… folks like you, Tuna, who blog about the game, DO benefit from the beta since you can pass along info to the masses. So keep at it, good luck, and have fun!
If someone has to be cajoled into voting, they have no business voting in the first place.
An uninformed vote is a lot worse than a non-vote. I wish these idiot celebs and “Get the Vote Out” retards would realize that.
-Cambios
Blogging about Online Gaming and Virtual Worlds:
http://www.muckbeast.com
Muckbeasts last blog post..Gamers are exceptional people.
Hi,
Can you validate if the ghost hit rating is still available for frost mage in the expansion.
Gratz on the beta key !
Thanks,
Bro
Oh, I have SO many questions. Here are the most pressing:
Can you come up with a Brain Freeze build that does awesome DPS? Specifically, take 43 points in Frost to get Brain Freeze, then take Fire talents to boost the damage of the freebie Fireballs?
Is Blink fixed? (LOL of course not.)
Magic Absorption – how good is it?
Thanks in advance.
Nick Ss last blog post..You hear that? Bears. Now the whole guild is in danger.
@ Bro
I haven’t tested out any of the end game dungeons yet so I can’t test it out. Also the new spell hit cap is different, and Blizzard has also made it so that you can actually be 100% spell hit capped instead of 99%. Once I find out more information I will let you know.
@ Nick S
I’ve come up with a PvE Brain Freeze Spec but what you are missing out is the raid utility of the Water Elemental, or Focus Magic. This spec would be a nice boost in your personal DPS though.
For PvP however, just getting Brain Freeze for the RNG is enough reason for making it a good talent to pick up.
Blink fixed? HA! Don’t count on it. I think I heard somewhere that in order to fix Blink, Blizzard would have to redo all the terrain in the game.
Magic Absorption is a talentl a lot of players will over look, but is a pretty decent talent- if you have the points to get it that is. The problem is, pretty only Arcane Mages are the only ones which will pick it up, and if they do, they have the potential to be a anti-caster Mage. With Magic Absorption and Mage Armor active, you will have a passive 120 Spell Resistance at level 80. Make it a 140 passive Spell Resistance with 2 more points into Arcane Shielding.